Dalhatu Adamu
Bayero University Kano, Nigeria
Title: Effect of tobacco addiction on youth development in Nigeria: A fact or farce
Biography
Biography: Dalhatu Adamu
Abstract
Background: The burden of tobacco addiction on youth development in Nigeria continues to grow with significant impact on health and major social, human rights and economic consequences in all countries of the world, with Nigeria being the third leading country among low income settings. Globally, tobacco addiction has been estimated to be much higher in men within their reproductive ages as oppose to their relative cohort. Aim: Evidently, there is paucity of information on major health indices in Nigeria on the effect of tobacco addiction on youth development . This created a social mishaps on whether tobacco addiction has significant effect on youth development as a promising evidence to bringing it to a halt. Therefore, this paper aimed at evaluating the effect of tobacco addiction in Nigeria particularly among youth in their reproductive ages. The paper reviewed scientific literature related to the effect of tobacco addiction on youth development in Nigeria and from around the world that were published both locally and internationally. Methods: Various studies employed nonrandomized clinical trials on evaluating the effect of tobacco smoking on youth development and DMS-IV&V scale were employed for specification of associated effect. For pragmatic reasons, the research team conducted a nonrandomized, pretest-posttest, controlled group study in most of the reviewed papers. The forensic therapists participated in the activities and closely observed changes in behaviors of the experimental youth cohort and the results were compared with the control group. Results : The results of various reviewed papers found that tobacco addiction on youth development were found significantly associated with impulsive behaviors, mental disorder and 3×times higher risk of premature death than their non addicted cohort r=0.612,P<0.01,r=0.544,P=0.000<0.001, respectively. On discharge, the patients were evaluated for effect size (ES) up to 0.61) within both groups.
Conclusion: It was concluded that the effect of tobacco on youth development is a fact and not farce. Therefore, the integration of adjuvant pharmacotherapy among youth with tobacco addiction in our local settings is recommended .